Last weekend the BBC broadcast The Royal Ballet's Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland. We asked our Twitter followers to live tweet during the programme using the hash tag #aliceintwitterland - you can see the fruits of their labour in some of the tweet highlights below.

]]>0Emma Beattyhttp://blog.roh.org.uk/?p=27122014-05-19T15:46:24Z2011-04-27T18:10:15ZAccessible arias: Lyrics to famous arias in the original language and translation.

CONTEXT: Marfa sings this touching lament at the end of Act IV. She is married to the Tsar against her will, and has become seriously ill after drinking a love potion. She rushes on stage agitated and mentally distressed.

Gryaznoy, a member of the Tsar’s secret police, tells her that Likov, her fiancé, is dead. She screams and falls unconscious. Coming round, she imagines herself with her lover, singing flirtatiously to him. Gryaznoy is so moved by her grief that he confesses to his part in the crime.

Before he can be led away, Marfa's love rival Lyubasha arrives, admitting that it was she who substituted the poison for the love potion. Gryaznoy stabs her. As he is taken off to be brought before the Tsar, the deluded Marfa bids him farewell, believing him to be her sweetheart Likov.

Ivan Sergeyevich, would you like to go to the garden? What a day, with all the green aromas. Wouldn’t you like to catch me now? I will run straight along the footpath. (Clapping hands) Well…one, two, three! (Runs; stops) Aha! Why, you didn’t catch me! And I have grown out of breath. Ah, look: what a bright bluebell I've picked! Is it true that it rings on Ivan’s Night? Petrovna told me miracles about that night. This apple tree is always flowering…Would you like to sit under it?

Oh, this dream! Oh, this dream!...

Look, over there, above the head, there is a sky like a marquee. How wonderfully has God woven it, as If it were blue velvet.

In foreign parts, in foreign lands is the sky the same as here? Look: over there, right there high above, there is a small cloud, as golden as a crown. Crowns like that, my dear, will be put on our heads tomorrow.

AUDIO: coming soon.

PODCAST: Director Paul Curran introduces his new production of The Tsar's Bride for The Royal Opera at a recent Insights event. [Listen.]

NOTES ON THE OPERA: Composer: Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Libretto: Il’ya Fyodorovich Tyumenev, based on a scenario by the composer after a drama by Lev Alexandrovich Mey. Discover more about The Tsar's Bride: synopsis, characters, context text, full details of current production. Score: as sung on stage, translation: Anastasia Medvedeva

]]>0Royal Opera Househttp://blog.roh.org.uk/?p=26522014-05-19T15:46:24Z2011-04-20T20:48:48ZHave you seen The Tsar's Bride yet? Do you want to discover more about the opera that's been dubbed 'Verdi on Vodka'?

Watch our very knowledgeable gentleman of the chorus: Charbel Mattar. We managed to rope him in to give us a quick interview backstage on the first night. He explains all about singing in Russian and the appeal of this Russian gem.

And talking of rope, here are some unofficial Tsar's Bride production photos taken by another talented chorister, Neil Gillespie.

The sun is out, all is well in Covent Garden, and the very charming Ballet Boyz have been spotted wielding High Definition cameras near Stage Door. We tracked them down to find out why.

It’s some 25 years since Ballet Boyz Michael Nunn and William Trevitt started out at the Royal Ballet School. Now after hanging up their ballet pumps as dancers, they are thriving as directors of an all-male dance/film company. They still frequent their alma mater from time to time, however. This month they’re making films to introduce the Royal Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet at The O2.

The Boyz are hard at work in the cavernous spaces of Opera Rehearsal Room One, putting dancers through their paces to the magnificent strains of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. They’re attempting to exactly synch up the bars of music to one long camera shot, describing moments in-between the scenes in Shakespeare’s tragic tale – such as Friar Laurence awaiting the lovers at his cell. These musical passages were originally penned by Prokofiev to fill scene-change time on stage. They were an anomaly for the O2 arena where the mechanics of stagecraft would have meant an overlong interlude on an empty stage.

This is where the Ballet Boyz come in: their dual knowledge of ballet and film allows them to make something balletic enough in character to keep the audience on the edge of their seat, still entranced by the tragic story. The Boyz' dramatized footage is to be timed to live music and must provide a smooth transition to enhance and illuminate the main action. It will be shown on three 10-metre wide screens around the arena, so is being filmed in High Definition revealing every nuance of the dancers’ movement, every swirl of smoke and light.

Nunn and Trevitt have never directed anything like this before. They know MacMillan’s ballet intimately, and aim to create the same theatrical atmosphere on film as on stage– hence the use of the one long shot, and of obvious stage props and scenery. In one scene, the live Juliet will run off stage, and reappear back stage (on the screens) for her quick change – ably assisted by her nurse in full costume. It is a neat splicing of the worlds of on stage/back stage, theatrical/cinematic. On the night, all will have to be timed to the split second; Music Director Barry Wordsworth who will be conducting, is primed to hold his orchestra steady to mellifluously segue from live to filmed action.

“This will be a very different ballet experience,” says Nunn. “It’s ballet for the cinema generation, perhaps. People are so good at reading the language of film and TV, but don’t know how to read ballet. Maybe this will help bridge the gap. This O2 production will be an epic experience. The sense of drama and intensity in that space will be like nothing else.”

]]>0Royal Opera Househttp://blog.roh.org.uk/?p=26402014-05-19T15:46:25Z2011-04-19T11:35:46ZIf any people missed out on the recent Ninette de Valois conference, they may like to know about another fascinating conference coming soon.

Not Just Fred and Ginger: Camaraderie, Collusion and Collisions Between Dance and Film

The Annual Conference of the European Association of Dance Historians in collaboration with Film Studies at London Metropolitan University.

14-16 October 2011 London, United Kingdom

The relationship between dance and film has produced some of the most respected and popular stars, directors, films and genres in screen history. At the same time, these well-established links have frequently revealed essential tensions between two distinct art forms and their often contrasting approaches and perspectives. The aim of the conference is to investigate the histories, processes, techniques, values and discourses inherent in the complex interactions between dance and film and to cast a renewed historical, critical and analytical light on the same.

Proposals for both individual twenty-minute papers and panels of three speakers are invited on any topic related to dance and film, including but not limited to the following:

Choreography and film

Film and dance history

Dance as cinematic narrative

Cinema as choreographic narrative

Transnational exchanges between dance and cinema

Music, dance and film

Genre boundaries and transgressions

The dancing body on film

Dance stars on and of the screen

Representations of national identity

Images of gender and sexuality

Ethnic and racial interventions

Directors of the film musical

Deadline for the submissions of proposals: Friday, 29 April 2011. Presenters will be notified of acceptance by Monday, 16 May 2011. Please e-mail a proposal of no more than 300 words in either MsWord or PDF format to the conference organisers Dr Giannandrea Poesio, Principal Lecturer and Media/Performance Coordinator, London Metropolitan University, and Dr Karen McNally, Senior Lecturer and Course Leader, Film Studies, London Metropolitan University at eadhconference@gmail.com Contact/affiliation details for each presenter must be provided on a separate sheet, to ensure blind reading.

In June, The Royal Ballet performs Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet at The 02in Greenwich. This new space puts the ballet classic in a new light – bringing an element of the big screen to it, but still with a live orchestra and dancers, and with MacMillan’s acclaimed choreography untouched. Live-screen relays will show all the action from three 10-metre screens around the dome, and there will be interlinking film (scenes of dramatized footage), shot by the Ballet Boyz, with a narrated voice-over to guide the audience through the plot complexities - a step up from the opera glasses and programme notes of old. (More on this in a coming blog.)

In a new light

The ROH lighting department is tasked with re-imagining its designs for The O2 stage where the dancers will be thrust forward into a horseshoe-shaped auditorium (half of the full arena). The space is five-times as big as the Royal Opera House and the stage somewhat wider.

Says Nick Ware, senior lighting manager, “People don’t realise the sense of drama there. It’s quite a thrilling, theatrical place, with its steeply raked sides, that rise 30-metres high at quite an angle. There’s a surprising sense of proximity to the main stage. It’s not really like any other performance space I've seen.”

“The new lighting is very dramatic - bolder and stronger than for the main house. You will be able to see beams of light in the air, accentuated by smoke, it will be very atmospheric, full of character and drama."

On stage, there is no proscenium, no wings, no drop cloths to disguise scene changes, no scenery to be flown in from above. Instead much of the stage architecture and atmosphere will be achieved by John B. Read’s new lighting designs. In some way, the lights will create the stage architecture giving a sense of space and volume. Each colour has its own unique number and title. For Romeo and Juliet, colours include ‘Skelton Exotic Sangria’ – a sultry, deep purple, good for concert lighting and special effects, 'pale lavender', and all shades of blue: 'cool', 'sky', 'nile', 'sea', 'azure', 'primary' and 'peacock'. All the lights are all operated from one central automated panel, and the sequences are devised in a visualization suite using a computer 3D mock-up of the arena using the simulation software as developed by Disney in its Pixar animations.

What do you get when you put three world-famous conductors in a lift? One asks of another: ‘do you have any tips on Mahler’s Das klagende Lied? ‘It all depends on which choirs you've got,' is the reply. ‘What’s it like to conduct?,’ says the third.

This improbable, but rather wonderful, scenario was played out last night, here in the Opera House, en route to the Linbury Theatre where the English National Opera’s Edward Gardner, Glyndebourne’s Vladimir Jurowski and The Royal Opera House’s Antonio Pappano prepared to discuss the daily life of the modern-day conductor. Veteran broadcaster Sir John Tusa lead the questions as part of an Insight event.

On stage, they stopped just short of discussing the niceties of baton technique, but spoke eloquently of their love of music and drama, the challenges of switching from opera to symphonic music, and, most tenderly of their childhoods. Jurowski recalled hearing the last act of Otello as a teenager, the first opera that made him cry. Gardner remembered his love of Fidelio as a boy. Pappano told of seeing his father perform in I Pagliacci and almost crushing the prop knife he was brandishing on stage, he was astonished and thrilled by the physical intensity of the performance.

All three of these moments lie behind the maestros’ favourite pieces of music. We recorded some off-stage moments in the Green Room for you - where they explained all.

Notes on the video: First clip: Antonio Pappano on I Pagliacci, Second clip: Vladimir Jurowski on Otello, Third clip: Edward Gardner on Fidelio

We're pleased to announce details of our next season, which stretches from Deloitte Ignite in September, curated by Mike Figgis, until summer 2012. Full details are posted here, but we've made this blog to give a quick overview of new productions and revivals.

Ballet

This is Monica Mason's last year, her final programme hails the future strength of the company with some exciting revivals and new works. It is also the Royal Ballet’s 80th birthday; the Vic-Wells Ballet was founded in 1931.

Jewels – Balanchine’s triple bill on the theme of rubies, diamonds and emeralds. Monica Mason said she adored this work, at the press preview.Marguerite and Armand – Fonteyn and Nureyev’s duet by Ashton, re-imagined with Sergei Polunin and Tamara Rojo.Manon - Martin Yates is conducting MacMillan’s classic and has re-orchestrated the music with an additional piece in Act III.Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Wheeldon’s new ballet returns, with more performances for those who missed it first time round.Prince of the Pagodas – MacMillan’s tribute to Classical ballet set in an exotic land, is being revived for the first time in 20 years.Les noces – Monica Mason described this as ‘one of the masterpieces of the 20th century’. It's part of a triple with Birthday Offering and A Month in the Country, and is one of four ballets this Season to the accompaniment of the human voice (the others are Requiem, Gloria and Song of the Earth).New works – New McGregor and New Scarlett in a triple bill in April. In July, there's a bold and big new tie-in with the National Gallery. It will see the likes of Christopher Wheeldon, Kim Brandstrup, Wayne McGregror, Jonathan Watkins and Liam Scarlett pair up with contemporary artists such as Chris Ofili and Mark Wallinger – inspired by Titian’s metamorphosis paintings.

Opera

Antonio Pappano's programme is inspired by the boldness of ambition of the Olympics. There are big, inspirational works, and cycles of works.

Il trittico – Richard Jones directs all three of Puccini short operas. The first full cycle of them at The Royal Opera House since 1965.Mozart’s Da Ponte operas – all three (Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro) are being played as a cycle in February. A chance to immerse yourself in Mozart and compare and contrast.Falstaff – a New Robert Carsen production of Verdi’s final masterpiece in May.Rusalka – Dvořák’s mix of myth and magic has not been performed at the ROH before.Les Troyens – A gigantic work for the Olympic Season. Berlioz’s epic version of the Trojan war and its aftermath in a new production by David McVicar.Miss Fortune – a UK premiere of Judith Weir's new opera, directed by Shi-Zheng Chen. Based on an Italian folk tale about the Fortune family.

ROH2

The contemporary arm of the Royal Opera House has developed new works and new talent for the coming Season. There's something for all audiences on a smaller scale than the main stage.

The Metamorphosis - Edward Watson takes the lead in Arthur Pita’s new dance piece on Kafka’s seminal novel.Heart of Darkness - Conrad’s dark tale of obsession in a new opera by young British composer Tarik O’Reagan.Magical Night - A family Christmas treat in a new dance version by Aletta Collins. To a score by Kurt Weill that had lain forgotten since 1954 and has only recently been rediscovered.Sum - A new chamber opera with music by Max Richter inspired by David Eagleman’s cult book. Wayne McGregor is director and choreographer.

]]>0Royal Opera Househttp://blog.roh.org.uk/?p=24962014-05-19T15:46:28Z2011-04-12T16:12:36ZWatching The Royal Ballet in the splendour of the Royal Opera House is a unique experience. It is often hard to equate the perfection on stage with the hours and hours of rehearsal - harder still to understand the process of how the dance was created and taught. Royal Opera House Insights offers audiences the chance to step through the proscenium arch and witness artists creating new work behind the scenes. Last Saturday, we had the chance to take over the largest Apple Store in the world, in London's Covent Garden. We set out to reveal the process of choreographing new work in a bold and public setting - amid the iPads and iBooks and before a crowd of weekend shoppers, out to enjoy the sunshine.

Kristen McNally, First Soloist and exciting young choreographer from the Company, used music from the American rapper Kanye West's latest album My Dark Twisted Fantasy to direct five Royal Ballet dancers, Thomas Whitehead, Jonathan Watkins, Ryoichi Hirano, Yasmine Naghdi and Jacqueline Clark. She was inspired, in part, by seeing the singer's use of ballet dancers in an acclaimed video for the piece. Assisted by her colleague David Pickering wielding an iPad 2, they were able to involve the audience by getting them to draw shapes on the screen. Kristen then used these shapes as a creative springboard, taking the choreography in exciting directions.

It felt immediate and exhilirating. The speed with which the dancers converted new moves to memory was astounding. As one blogger put it, "you could literally see the ballet expand and evolve before your eyes." I can't think of another art form where it's possible to see the creative process at such a raw stage; it's impossible to take a tour of a composer's brain, a painter's studio is sealed off from the public and the study of a novelist is a solitary space.

Judging by the response in the Twitter-verse (#kanyeballet), this should be the first of many such collaborations. Read Kristen's post event blog post and post-apple-store interview with Kristen.